A Gospel Shaped Life

We ask, Father, that your word would grip us.

We know, Father, that it's impossible for us to read your word day by day and always have it grip us.

And we ask, Father, that for those of us who are in Jesus, you would help us to hear part of your word and read part of your word every day.

But now, Father, as we gather around your word, we ask that you would bring your word home to us,

that you would help us, Father, to be honest with ourselves and honest with you in light of your word.

And we ask that your Holy Spirit, Father, would bring Jesus very close to us as we hear your word.

And we ask that Jesus would just have his way in the very center of our lives and to the very end of our lives.

And we ask this in Jesus's name. Amen.

Please be seated.

So because I watch Netflix and Amazon Prime and I'm always looking for a good show to find,

it's not uncommon that around the family and with other places that people will say,

somebody will say to me, oh, George, you know, you should watch this movie.

And if my kids are there and if they've seen the movie or heard of it,

they'll often very, very quickly say, actually, I'm going to turn from this mic to this mic.

Done? Perfect.

Anyway, so one of the things my kids will often say when somebody recommends a movie to me

is they'll say, Dad is not going to like this movie because nobody gets shot and nobody dies.

And so they think I only like movies.

I mean, I have to confess.

Okay, don't do what I say, okay?

This is confession.

I like watching Die Hard at Christmastime.

I mean, you know, what can I say?

Like they're a little bit, it's not as if my children do not know me, okay?

Okay, so, and so anyway, and another thing they would say about me is that I generally don't like romantic comedies.

So I know I've just alienated a large group of the room, but that's just, you know, full disclosure time.

So one of the problems we have today, if you're just a guest, we're going through the Gospel of Ruth,

not the Gospel, the Gospel of Ruth, yeah.

We're going through the Book of Ruth, and we're going to read it in a moment.

If you have your Bibles, you might want to start looking for it.

It's a teeny tiny little book between Judges and 1 Samuel, which are bigger.

Those of you who don't have your Bibles, the text is going to be on the screen in a couple of minutes as we start to read through it.

And so one of the ways to think of the Book of Ruth is as if you watched a Netflix special with four separate episodes.

So each episode is its own episode, but all four of the episodes tell a bigger story.

So each episode tells a story, but all four episodes together tell a bigger story, and that's a way to understand it.

And it's also a bit of a challenge for me preaching because, well, you know, because there's a bigger story.

But anyway, so here's the thing is last week's story, where we were, if you missed last week.

Well, last week's story, I mean, that was actually people died.

So, you know, I liked it.

No, it's terrible.

So in last week's story, we get introduced to Naomi and her husband and her two sons, and they go to, they leave Bethlehem because there's a famine, and they go to Moab, and they take their two sons.

And they get to Moab, which is an ancient enemy of Israel, and they're Jewish people, and they go to this place where they go to their enemies, so to speak.

But while they're there, first of all, Naomi's husband dies.

Her two sons take wives in Moab, and then the two sons die, and there's no other sons to Naomi, and both of her kids, her sons and their wives, have no children.

And in that ancient world, they have just about died.

They have hit the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom.

And Naomi hears that the Lord has visited his people back in Judah, in Israel, and so she says she's going to go back.

And as she's going back, she ends up having several very frank talks with her daughters-in-law, whom she loves, and they love her.

And she says, listen, don't be fools.

My life is over.

At first, she does something which is quite faithful.

She's quite faithful.

She sort of has this, like, way advanced sort of sense that the Lord will even bless them, even though they're in Moab, which is quite—we talked about it last week.

I won't go back into it again.

But, you know, the Lord can bless you in Moab, but you need to go back.

You're still young enough to have husbands and have a life and have a future.

My life sucks, and my life is terrible.

I will only drag you down.

Don't come with me.

Horpa agrees with Naomi's diagnosis and goes home.

Ruth does this remarkable act, and we talked about it last week.

I will go with you wherever you live, wherever you stay, wherever you walk.

Your people will be my people.

Your God will be my God.

And I will stay in your land, worshiping your God.

Even after you die, nothing will ever make me leave you.

And ultimately, in the day, leave the Lord.

And it's quite a remarkable speech.

But as the story goes on, other two remarkable things in the story is that Naomi just blasts God and says,

God, my life sucks, and it's all your fault.

And she says it twice.

And then when she gets back to Bethlehem, she actually tells everybody,

you can no longer call me Naomi, which means pleasure and pleasant.

You have to call me Mara, which means bitter.

And then she gives it.

That's the second zinger.

Because God has made my life completely and utterly bitter.

And that's how the story ends.

So that, you know, it's a bit of a shocking thing to realize that for a lot of religious and spiritual people

and for a lot of Christians to believe that God actually allowed, actually had that recorded,

this blast against him, had it recorded twice.

And so now we're going to look at Act 2, the second part of the story.

And here's the problem.

It's a romantic comedy.

Now, why is that a problem, some of you say?

Well, I mean, the problem is, I mean, this could be made by Disney, this next part.

This isn't X-rated.

This is, I mean, not that that stops Disney anymore.

But that's, you know, it's just, it's like a romantic comedy.

It's, we just look at it and go, oh, yeah.

Yeah.

So the poor young thing meets a rich guy.

And there's really, it's a bit blah.

But there's something else going on here.

So let's at least look at the story now that I've warned you that you're going to find it.

I mean, some of you are going to say, well, I could see how they could make that into a script.

And it could turn into a bit of a love story and all that.

And as those of you who know the rest of the next two chapters, a love story does develop.

But this is the beginning of it.

It's like a rom-com.

It doesn't seem very serious.

Okay.

And it doesn't seem very, like, real to real life.

It seems a bit fairy tale-ish.

Well, let's look at the story.

Okay.

So turn to Ruth 2.

And those of you who don't have Bibles or just would rather look at the screen, let's look at the screen and see how the story goes.

And here's how it goes.

Now, Naomi had a relative of her husband's, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.

And we'll just pause here.

Just so you don't get confused in the story, what the writer does, the story is set, what the writer does is he lets the reader know something that the actors don't know.

Okay.

Okay.

That's what you need to understand.

He's telling us, but Ruth doesn't hear this.

The writer, we don't have to know if the writer is a he or a she, by the way.

I shouldn't say he.

But the author of the story lets us know something that one of the characters, one of the key characters doesn't know.

Okay.

That's how the craft works.

Verse 2.

And Ruth, the Moabite, said to Naomi, let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.

And Naomi said to Ruth, go, my daughter.

And just sort of pause here for a second.

And the story is going to mention quite a few times to remind us that she's from Moab.

And just those of you who weren't here last week or you don't remember, when the Israelites tried to, when they would talk about who the Moabite people are, they'd say, well, listen, what can you expect?

Because the way the Moabite nation was founded was a man got drunk, had sex with his daughter, and the daughter got pregnant.

And that was the guy who started Moab.

Like, what can you expect of such a people?

And they've always been our enemies.

So this story is going to mention quite a few times this episode that Ruth is from Moab.

So it wants us to remember one moment, this is who Ruth is in the eyes of the Jewish people who were there.

And it's going to come up that they recognize that that's where she's from as well.

And they just want the reader to recognize this.

The other thing, which is that there's no answer about it in the text, but it looks as if Naomi has given up on life.

Because Naomi doesn't say, that's a really good idea to go glean.

Let's go do it together.

She says, you go.

And Naomi does absolutely nothing whatsoever.

Ruth's going to do all the work.

So Naomi has continued to have given up on life.

She's living in a desert.

Her life is as good as dead.

And she is doing nothing to deal with it.

She is completely and utterly depressed.

But Ruth recognizes the need that they're going to have to get some food.

So she says, let me go out and have a chance to glean.

And in the ancient world, what she could have, even in places like Moab, that after you've got the barley and everything like that, there's always something left behind.

They don't get 100% of it.

So you can go and see what's left behind.

And what she might or might not know is that in the Old Testament law, there were specific rules around how harvesters were to harvest because God in his law wanted to provide for the poor.

And so God in his law, if you were, in fact, an observant, faithful Jewish person at this time, you would have known that you intentionally leave extra grain untouched at the edges.

And it's your goal.

In fact, if you got 100% of the grain, you were disobeying God.

God didn't want you to get 100% of the grain.

He wants you to leave some of the grain behind so the poor and the dispossessed could have grain to eat.

She might or might not have known that.

The story doesn't tell you.

But she uses that word.

So she sets off.

And she doesn't really know where she's going.

It's not that big.

But she just sets off.

Like, I know the harvest is going on.

I'll just see if there's some good fields.

And the story continues in verse 3.

So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers.

And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz.

Boaz, our ears pick up because Boaz is a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech.

She happens to come to the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech.

Now, just pause here another game.

This story is going slow.

But there's actually some depth here in the story.

In the original language, when it says happened to, you know how it says up there,

she happened to come to the part of the field?

In the original language, it says she chanced to chance.

It says chanced twice.

She chanced to chance.

And it's a literary device to try to emphasize the opposite.

Oh, yeah.

Like, she happened to come to this field.

Like, that's in a sense how you read it.

She happened to come to this field because what they want you to know is that it wasn't just chance.

I'm not going to talk about it very much today because it's going to come up in the next episode, so to speak.

But what's at work here in this story is that on one level, God is never mentioned.

But what the author has just done here by saying, well, she just happened to come to that field is, no, it's not just happening.

It's providence.

Providence.

God is acting behind the scenes to nudge her in a particular direction because he's at work in her life.

He's working anonymously in her life.

You see, the main way that God works in a Christian's life is anonymously.

In heaven, we will discover how many times our prayers were answered.

You know, Lord, keep my family safe.

And then we'll find out that God caused somebody to, caused you to stop for a pedestrian.

If you hadn't stopped for a pedestrian, you would have gone through a light and had a car accident.

I mean, I don't know what it is.

But you'll discover how many times, in fact, God has been answering your prayers and active in your life, but he does it in an anonymous way.

And that's what the story is signaling.

God is working anonymously in this story, in particular in the story of Boaz and Ruth and Naomi.

It's a very important and comforting thought that God works anonymously in our lives.

It means he works gently and respectfully.

Some of you have heard, the start of my journey that led to me becoming a Christian was when I was walking down Elgin Street.

And as I'm walking down Elgin Street, I saw a poster that captured my eye.

And this was a long, long time ago when Christians didn't have rock music.

I know it's hard for young people to believe.

Ask some of the old timers.

If back in the old days, if you'd seen a Christian rock concert, well, first of all, for some of the old timers, they didn't know what rock, they hadn't been rock music yet.

But for not quite as old timers, Christian rock, and by providence, that poster caught my eye.

By providence, I went down Elgin Street.

I didn't go down O'Connor.

I didn't go down Metcalf.

I didn't go down Bank where there were no posters.

I went down the street.

I noticed the poster out of all the posters.

I went to the event.

It was the beginning of my journey to becoming a conference.

That's providence.

That's providence.

So the writer is saying, okay, guys, just listen.

God is acting anonymously in this story.

And then it continues.

Verse 4.

And this is part of the providence.

Because it wouldn't be that Boaz showed up every day.

But as part of the providence, not only, you know, she goes to this field, this field, this field.

She ends up following this field.

And they haven't kicked her off.

And by providence, she's there.

And by providence, Boaz shows up.

Because the guy who's like the boss of the boss of the boss of the boss of the boss, as you know, doesn't always show up in a particular workplace.

But he shows up at this workplace this day when Ruth is there at the very, very beginning of the barley harvest.

Verse 4.

And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem.

And he said to the reapers, the Lord be with you.

And they answered, the Lord bless you.

Now, just pause here again.

This is actually going to be just a bit of an aside about why this is a bit significant.

What this show, first of all, in Ottawa, we can all relate to this.

The first thing it shows is unlike some hockey teams where the players don't like the owner.

I don't know where that would be.

In this case, it shows that the workers like the owner.

But the more important thing is it's setting a tone.

Boaz is obviously working to set a tone for how people talk and how the workplace works.

When my kids were all younger and I had all nine of them at home, occasionally we would have bouts of name calling.

I know that's hard to believe.

That kids would call each other names.

And I'd have to have a bit of a talk with them.

And I'd say, listen, you have to have a bit of a decision here about the type of house you want to live in.

Do you want to live in a house where everybody calls each other names?

And where it's completely and utterly miserable?

Or do you want to live in a house where that doesn't happen?

Where it's not miserable?

Like the choice is yours.

And my kids were great kids, still are great kids.

And I mean, they're kids.

I'd have to have the talk more than once.

But they'd understand that if you go ahead, and I can't say some of the words from the pulpit that they would say to each other.

If that's the heir of the house, it's going to be a toxic type of household.

And so what Boaz is doing here, he's putting the Lord at the center of the workplace.

A Lord who blesses.

A Lord who greets.

He's at the center of the workplace.

So it's actually quite significant.

Anyway, so verse 5.

Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers.

This is not reapers in a firefly sense, by the way, for those of you with a pop cultural reference.

These are people who bring in grain.

Okay.

He says to the reapers, whose young woman is this?

And I just pause.

So maybe some of you have brought your seeker friend who's never been to a church, and they come to a line like this and go,

Oh, dang.

Here we go.

I'm going to have a conversation afterwards.

Yes, the Bible tries to tell Christians that women are just property.

You know, whose woman is this?

As if she's not her own woman.

Like, why can't she be her own woman?

Why does the Bible try to talk as if women are just property of men?

That's not what's going on at all.

I grew up in Montreal.

When I moved to Ottawa, I had a hard time adjusting because I felt like we'd moved to a small city.

And I eventually got over it.

And then my first place as a minister was in the suburbs of Ottawa.

And then after that, I went to Eganville with 1,300 people.

And I also looked after a little church in Killaloo with 700 people.

And I looked after two other little churches, one in Traymore and Klontarf with zero people.

I used to joke you could go to Klontarf at just about any time of the day,

close your eyes with an assault rifle, a Kalashnikov rifle,

and fire a full clip around you and not hit anything other than maybe a deer.

And, you know, eight people would show up on a Sunday.

And I cared for that.

They were my congregation.

I was their pastor.

But here's the thing which took me a long time to understand when I was in a rural church.

And for those of you from rural areas or those of you from other countries,

is I had a hard time getting used to the fact that you never just met somebody.

Like, Denise would not just introduce me to Delmer.

Delmer.

She would say, Delmer is married to Jan, who is...

You got it, right?

And everybody.

That's how all the introductions worked.

It was never just...

You know, in Ottawa, you don't do that.

You don't say, hi, this is Gary.

You know, he's...

Well, in fact, Gary's related to nobody in Ottawa.

I mean, other than through Lynn, right?

And it would look weird.

But that's how rural people do.

For many people, you could, you know, ask some people who are immigrants here.

That's probably how in many other cultures it works.

You always establish the family connections.

And that's what Ruth...

That's what Boaz is doing.

Who is that person?

Like, who...

Like, help me to fit her in.

Is she, you know, Bob's cousin's, you know, wife's sister or something, right?

But you always establish that.

And that's what he's trying to do.

It's not trying to tell us that women are being treated as property.

And so she...

And verse 6, go back to verse 6.

And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered,

She is the young Moabite woman, there's that word,

who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab.

She said,

Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.

So she came and she has continued from early morning until now,

except for a short rest.

In other words, she's been a very, very hard worker.

Now, probably what's happened is that Ruth has gone to different fields

and they've kicked her off.

But this particular manager,

because he understands that Boaz is actually trying to keep what the law says

and have it formed...

He wants...

That Boaz wants the Lord and the Lord's word

to form Boaz's life and Boaz's workplace.

This manager has allowed the woman to glean.

And now I guess, in a sense, what's Boaz going to do?

And his answer is actually quite remarkable.

I have...

I'm actually a very shy person.

That the Lord...

After I became a Christian,

about three months after I became a Christian,

I actually started a Christian club in my high school.

I mean, how cool was that?

That's what everybody said.

You're supposed to laugh at that.

Christian clubs, like, go right up there with the chess club

and the cello club in terms of coolness in a high school.

Okay?

Like, to start a Christian club at your high school

is to tell everybody,

put a big tattoo on your forehead,

this man is not cool.

Anyway, and on top of it,

I had very, very, very bad acne.

I was very shy.

And I knew that when you had a Christian club,

you had to open the Bible.

Nobody else would do it, so I would do it.

And that was the beginning of what turned into me becoming a pastor.

But I...

Anyway, so you...

All of us have been in situations

where we're out of our comfort zone.

We're in a gathering.

Maybe it's in a different country, a different culture,

just a different subculture.

And somehow or another, we get in there,

and we're not sure how anything works.

Like, I...

This sounds so crazy,

but the first time I went into a place in England,

I sat down,

because in Canada, the waitress comes to you.

And I sat there,

and I'm getting more and more uncomfortable

because everybody else...

I discovered you have to go up to there.

You go to the cash to get your meal,

and the waitress brings it to you,

but she doesn't come to take your order.

Anyway, you know what I mean.

You go into a new situation.

You don't really know what to do.

Maybe you're with rich people.

You don't know what to do.

I remember I got invited to a $500...

It was a $1,000 a plate meal once

because there was a person in the congregation

who gave me the ticket and my wife.

And we were a bit nervous.

Because I have no idea how to act

at a $1,000 a plate meal.

I'm a McDonald's guy.

Like, living it up is going to Subway.

That's where the higher class people go,

you know, where I feel a bit stretched, right?

And we felt very uncomfortable here.

So you can just imagine Ruth.

She doesn't really know what's going on.

Listen how Boaz helps her in verse 8.

Then Boaz said to Ruth,

Now listen, my daughter.

He's taking some responsibility for her.

He doesn't say,

Listen, you Moabite.

Or he doesn't say,

Oh, come on.

Just make yourself at home and then leave.

Leaving her completely and utterly helpless

is what to do.

You know?

But he says,

Now listen, my daughter.

Do not glean in another field

or leave this one,

but keep close to my young woman.

He gives her a blank check into the future.

Stay with me and stay close.

Don't have to stay far away.

Come as close.

Come really close.

And then verse 9.

Let your eyes be on the field

that they are reaping and go after them.

Have I not charged the young men not to touch you?

Long before the Me Too movement,

this is a workplace

where women are not to be sexually harassed.

Why?

Because Boaz is being guided by the Word of God.

The Word of God always forbids

the harassment of the weak in general

and women in particular.

Always.

Always, always, always, always.

And he knows there's going to be an issue there

because a lot of these young men are very unconverted.

And he says,

I've told the young men,

you're not allowed to harass or touch or molest you.

And when you are thirsty,

go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.

So he said, you're welcome here.

And not only are you welcome here,

I want you to work close.

And not only are you to work close,

you're completely and utterly under my protection.

And not only are you under my protection,

have as much water as you want.

She knows how to function.

It's a very, very kind and compassionate gesture.

He's entered into her world.

And it even gets deeper because,

well, sorry, we jumped up the story a little bit.

So verse 10,

then she fell on her face,

bowing to the ground and said to him,

why have I found favor in your eyes

that you should take notice of me

since I am a foreigner?

And the bowing on her face,

that's just a cultural moment.

Remember, one of the reasons that the Bible here

mentions this story

with all of its cultural particularity

is because the Bible isn't about

timeless, eternal truths that we just know.

It's not about abstractions.

It's at the heart of the Bible

is the idea that God loves

not the abstraction of George,

not the abstraction of human beings,

but God loves George,

and God loves Andrew,

and God loves Joey,

and God loves Lynn,

and God loves Alex,

and he loves you in your particular story,

in your particularity,

and he wants you in your particular story

to enter into his story

and have his story change your story.

And so particularities are mentioned.

Verse 11,

but Boaz answered her,

and this is very interesting,

what he's going to tell her right now

is I do this because the Lord wants me to do this,

and in a sense he doesn't say,

I'm doing this for my glory,

I'm doing this to show you how cool I am.

You know, this is all the Lord's provision for you.

The Lord wants to bless you,

and he's just using me.

Listen to how he puts it.

All that you have done for your mother-in-law

since the death of your husband

has been fully told to me,

and how you left your father

and your mother and your native land

and came to a people

that you did not know before.

The Lord repay you for what you have done,

and a full reward be given you by the Lord,

the God of Israel.

Remember, they keep telling you she's a Moabite?

Given you by the Lord,

the God of Israel,

under whose wings you have come to take refuge.

By the way, this is really important.

Bible, for those of you who might get confused

outside of the context of here,

it's very, very clear

that you're only to use masculine pronouns for God.

But, the Bible just compares God to a hen.

Right? That's fine.

The Lord, the Almighty God,

is like a hen,

and you are like one of the chicks,

and you find sucker and protection

under the hen's wings.

Very close and intimate.

And it just shows that,

you know, there's some order of the images,

but we're to use these type of maternal images

for our Father God

in terms of how he protects us and cares for us.

And then, verse 13, she responds,

I have found favor in your eyes, my Lord,

for you have comforted me

and spoken kindly to your servant,

though I am not one of your servants.

Now, just sort of pause.

We're almost,

we're sort of almost just through reading the story,

and we haven't even got to the full significance of the story.

Like, so far,

I've brought out some of the details

so that when you're reading the story,

you can sort of understand

some of the things going on here,

but it does sound still like

a little bit of a rom-com story, doesn't it?

God acts in her life.

For a lot of us, we'd say,

well, that's sort of a very inspirational story.

I know how Disney makes inspirational movies,

and I feel inspired,

but you know, George,

the problem is that,

I don't know, George,

like, my,

my life sucks, George,

and I can watch all sorts of inspirational movies,

and I feel good for a little bit,

but then my life still sucks.

And I don't know if this story's going to do anything for me, George,

because did I tell you that my life sucks?

My life sucks.

Well, it's still going to sound very rom-com-ish,

but we need to go through the rest of the story,

and then we'll show how this is actually

a very important story for our lives.

Verse 14,

at the meal,

and at mealtime,

Boaz says to Ruth,

come here and eat some bread

and dip your morsel in the wine.

So she sat beside the reapers,

and he passed to her,

he passed to her roasted grain,

and she ate until she was satisfied

and had some left over.

One scholar says that at the time that this was written,

you could divide Jewish society into 16 levels,

16 strata,

and everybody would have known where they were,

that it was a very stratified society.

It's a very, very common thing in ancient cultures

to be very stratified.

We try to pretend that there's no classes here,

but there are social classes here,

and there are other types of classes,

but we try to pretend they aren't.

But in the ancient world,

they would have just said,

yeah, there's classes.

I'm of this class.

You're of this class.

You know,

and if you're a high class,

you just,

the lower class people exist to serve you.

And from the data,

it's not clear whether Boaz is at number three

or number four.

Number one's the highest.

But what is clear is that Ruth is at 16.

Ruth is at 16.

Boaz,

it's not clear whether he's three or four.

He's really high.

Like,

generally,

she can't see that high.

Right?

And it's quite shocking

for an ancient story

that a number three

or a number four

is serving the number 16.

And the other thing,

which is very shocking,

which we don't get as shocking as,

and by the way,

the reason we don't find this shocking,

the reason that,

the reason that even if I was to read this

at a coffee shop,

and not a single person there was Christian,

none of them would find this shocking.

The reason Canadians don't find this shocking

is because whether Canadians realize it or not,

these stories have changed

how they understand the world.

Every person I talk to at a coffee shop

has been formed by the biblical worldview,

even though they don't know it.

Every single one of them.

Because it's just not the way

the ancient world would have worked.

In the ancient world,

Boaz wouldn't have allowed Ruth in the field.

Why?

Because a dollar given to the poor

is a dollar less for me.

And if you do do it,

you do it for your own glory.

So people will sing your praises,

not for her.

And if you do allow her here,

it would be,

listen,

if you come and serve me,

I'll give you a few scraps.

But he serves her.

And as we'll see in the story,

he serves her

and gives her more than she needs.

Verse 15,

when she rose to glean,

Boaz instructed his young men,

saying,

let her glean

even among the sheaves

and do not reproach her.

And also pull out some

from the bundles

for her

and leave it

for her to glean

and do not rebuke her.

You see,

what Boaz understands

is that if you read

the Old Testament,

when it talks about the tithe,

when it talks about

leaving the borders,

what it is,

is God is,

what God is doing

is God is launching us

on a trajectory.

He's saying,

if you start to understand

that I am Jehovah Jireh,

I am your great provider.

If you start to understand

that I have redeemed you

out of the nation,

out of Egypt

and out of the house of slavery,

I have redeemed you

and you are mine

and I am your God

and I will care for you.

I want you to so be gripped

by who I am

and how I have rescued you

that all of those

natural tendencies

within you

to hoard,

to be self-centered,

to be miserly,

that they will begin

to die on you

as you are gripped

by how I have redeemed you

and you start not only

to do these few small acts

of generosity,

but you grow in generosity.

That it's not just

a matter of,

okay,

I got that little tiny bit

of generosity out of the way,

but the Lord wants to so work

to free you

from having,

from serving money

and serving yourself

and serving all of that

that you start to learn

the freedom

of giving and blessing

and Boaz has got it.

Boaz has got it.

Let's just finish reading

this story very quickly.

It's already 32 minutes,

but here's,

so he's gone way beyond

what has happened

and he's told

the whole workplace,

you are to be generous

with this woman.

Verse 17,

so she gleaned in the field

until evening

and then she beat out

what she had gleaned

and it was about

an eppha of barley,

but basically she's gleaned enough

for two people

to live for two weeks.

Okay,

that's how you can understand it.

She's gotten enough food

for two people

to live on for two weeks

and she took it up

and went into the city.

Her mother-in-law

saw what she had gleaned.

Remember,

bitter,

sees what she's gleaned

and she also brought out

and gave her

what food she had left over

after being satisfied

so bitter has something

extra to eat

and her mother-in-law

said to her,

where did you glean today

and where have you worked?

Blessed be the man

who took notice of you.

So she told her mother-in-law

with whom she had worked

and said,

the man's name

with whom I work today

is Boaz.

Remember,

we know that Boaz

is somebody

but she didn't know that

until right now

and Naomi said

to her daughter-in-law,

may he be blessed

by the Lord

whose kindness

has not forsaken

the living or the dead.

Naomi also said to her,

the man is a close relative

of ours,

one of our redeemers

and that's going to become

an important word

for the rest of the story

but I'll leave that

for next week

and the week after.

And Ruth the Moabite said,

remember,

they want us to remember,

besides he said to me,

you shall keep close

by my young men

until they have finished

all my harvest.

And Naomi said to Ruth,

her daughter-in-law,

it is good my daughter

that you go out

with his young women

lest in another field

you be assaulted.

So Ruth kept close

to the young woman

of Boaz,

gleaning until the end

of the barley

and wheat harvest.

So for eight weeks,

seven or eight weeks,

she stayed there.

And if at six,

you can just do the math,

if six days a week

she was getting enough

for two people

to live on for two weeks,

you can do the math.

At the end of this process,

Boaz has been remarkably

generous to her.

And she has provided,

Boaz and Ruth

have provided

for Naomi and Ruth

to live for the whole year

and to be able to trade

and have some leftover,

have elbow room.

And Ruth continues

to live with her mother-in-law.

So, okay,

so here we go.

We spent a lot of time.

You've got the story

sort of straight.

So could you put up

the first point, Andrew?

Here's how we start

to unpack this,

you know,

because it does just sound

like this is a,

you know,

a romance movie.

It's an inspirational movie.

You know,

I took out a movie

from the library

about a cowboy

who breaks his back

and ends up,

you know,

getting new meaning in life.

It's an inspirational movie.

I haven't taken it.

I haven't watched it yet.

Maybe I won't

because I have to return it tomorrow.

But it's like,

just sounds like

an inspirational thing.

But here's the thing

which is really important

about this story.

Ruth isn't trapped

in the circle

or by fate

or by the gods.

Instead,

by the Lord's providence,

Ruth is living

a different story,

a resurrection-shaped story.

So, you see,

here's the thing

that we don't quite appreciate

about older stories.

Like, you know,

we watch something

like The Lion King

and they have all this

wonderful thing

about the circle of life

and all of that

and everything just seems happy

and all that.

But here's the thing.

In the ancient world,

the circle is a trap.

You are stuck.

In fact,

the circle is depressing

because you know

what the circle tells you?

You live and then you die.

Don't ever forget that.

You live

and then you die.

It's just a circle.

You live

and then you die.

No hope.

You're stuck.

And we like movies

like The Lion King

because we imagine

that we're the prince.

We don't realize

that the circle

is used

in all of the ancient stories

in all of the ancient world

to justify servants

being servants forever.

If your life sucks,

it's going to suck

until you die

if I'm a high caste person

because it's the circle.

or it's just fate.

You're fated to die

or the gods are mad at you

and you're all,

you're just a puppet.

And those are all the options.

And in this story,

we see something

which,

like literary scholars,

talk about how

in the Old

and the New Testament

a completely different idea

emerges into the consciousness

of the world.

That it's not just

that we're sort of stuck

in this endless circle

of death and rebirth.

It's not that we're stuck

in some type of a fate,

but that you can change

your destiny.

You can be like me

and be,

and my dad and my mom

had grade 8 education.

Grade 8 education.

I have a master's degree.

I have a professional job.

I have a respectable job.

And a lot of you

can tell the same type of story.

And you tell people,

you know,

what do they say

at every high school graduation?

Every single high school grad.

None of them say,

it's a circle of life.

Your life sucks.

You're going to die.

What do they say?

They say,

follow your dreams.

They say,

the world isn't just a fate.

It's not just a circle.

You're not trapped

with where you are.

If your life sucks,

it won't suck

after you just

pick up the ball

and whatever

and grab your talents

and live your dream.

And that's what they say

at every single high school.

Every single high school

story

is not based

on the basic myths

and understanding

of the ancient world

and today.

Because what is it working today?

What does a serious movie

look like today?

Especially when you look

at movie reviewers

and movie reviewers

want to show

that they're not just

fluffy promotional hacks,

but they're serious.

So they have a couple

of the movies

they have to put in,

you know,

because let's say

when the first Guardians

of the Galaxy came out,

it like made a gazillion dollars

and everybody loved it

and it laughed,

so you have to put it in there.

But you also include

the serious movies.

And what's a serious movie?

Justice doesn't happen

and you die.

I Love Tanya

is a serious movie.

If you watch that movie,

her life sucks.

Her life sucks,

her life sucks,

her life sucks,

and at the end

you discover that

her life really does suck.

It's a serious movie.

Why is it a serious movie?

Because what do we really know?

What do serious thinkers know?

What do serious thinkers know?

Is that death wins.

What do serious thinkers know?

Serious thinkers know

that everything is a result

of time and chance.

The strong eat the weak

and you die.

So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can have your inspirational stuff

and everything like that.

And here's the other thing,

by the way.

The non-serious movies

make a billion dollars

and the serious movies

that the critics love

make 15 million dollars.

Why?

We now know

at the deepest levels,

even if we don't know

how they can possibly be true,

we want those stories

to be true.

We want the high school

graduation speeches

to be true.

We want it to be

that we're not just

on some wheel of fate

that's going to

eventually crush us.

That we're not trapped.

We want a resurrection story

to be true.

So, in fact,

actually,

if you think about it,

if a modern filmmaker

just made Ruth one,

the serious critics

would say,

that's a real story.

She ends up with nothing,

cursing God.

Yes!

And for all 5,000 people

on the planet

who watched it,

that's yes.

And Ruth two

just blows it.

Oh, standard rom-com stuff.

Young thing meets rich guy.

Come on.

Fairy tale,

Santa Claus,

Easter bunny,

great pumpkin.

Not serious.

But here's the thing

that's going on,

you see.

If you could put up

the next point, Andrew.

Canadians do not believe

in the resurrection of Jesus,

but they love

resurrection-shaped stories.

Right?

Canadians do not believe

in the resurrection of Jesus,

but they love

resurrection-shaped stories.

You see,

what's happening

for Canadians

is this.

This sermon series

is called

Upside Down.

If you just,

for a second,

don't see the words there,

all those buildings

are standing on nothing.

All those buildings

are standing on,

oh, thank you,

I didn't know

you could do that.

All those buildings

are standing on nothing.

You see,

we want a resurrection story

without the resurrection.

We find the resurrection

offensive.

But we now come to understand

that our resurrection story

got to be true.

It's got to be true.

Because gosh,

it sucks

if life sucks

is the only thing

that's true.

If death wins,

you know,

if justice never wins,

if right and wrong,

just,

if wrong wins,

and so we believe

this inspirational stuff,

but we're stuck

in a culture

where

we have resurrection stories

with no resurrection.

And so the serious people

say that's illusion.

Your life just sucks.

Can you put up

the next point, Andrew?

Because

the resurrection

of Jesus is true,

the story of your life

can become

a resurrection story.

Because the resurrection

of Jesus is true,

the story of your life

can become

a resurrection story.

You see,

that's what's going on

here in Ruth,

is this story,

the ancient world,

they would have been used

to the idea

that you're just

a puppet in the hands

of angry gods.

They would have been used

to the sense

that there's stories

of how the fates

are going to eventually

have you die.

They're used to the stories

of the circle of life.

And your life sucks

and then you die.

But this story

is starting to be

something which is

very revolutionary

and it's preparing us

for the day

when a man named Jesus

is born

and lives an anonymous life

for 30 years.

And then he has

a three-year public ministry

and he does remarkable things

like raise the dead

by a mere voice of command.

And he does remarkable teachings.

And then shock of shocks,

a man who could feed

5,000 from a few

barley loaves and fishes

and we thought

that he would be

somebody different.

And he dies on the cross

and it looks as if

the story is completely

and over.

And on the third day

in a real place,

in a real city,

a real number of years ago,

on the third day

the tomb is completely

and utterly empty

just as he prophesied

and predicted.

And then he starts

to show himself

to lots of people

and the word comes out

that the body

cannot be found

and the only explanation

is that this man

in a completely new way,

still recognizable

but a completely new way,

he actually has risen

from the dead.

It's true.

And this casts

this bright light

all the way back

to all the Old Testament stories.

Ruth is preparing us

for a resurrection story.

Ruth is living a story

where she is as good as dead.

You see,

it's not so much

that the stories are linear

but the Bible story

starts up here

and there's a death

and then it goes like this.

Right?

That's what inspirational stories

are like, right?

They're sort of like a check mark.

They go right up

and to the right.

And this is saying

the reason we love

resurrection stories

is that God

was preparing our hearts

for the resurrection

of his son.

And here's the thing

is that

it means

that wherever you are

if you've given your life

to Jesus

he, you know,

there's nothing you can do

about your past

but no matter what

your past is

the rest of your life

can be shaped

and marked

by the resurrection

of Jesus.

Now this isn't a

health and wealth

gospel story.

It's not saying

that it means

that you're going to have

lots of money

and all of a sudden

you know,

all of us guys

are going to look like

George Clooney

or Brad Pitt

or a younger version

of them

or Paul Newman

and you know,

all the women

are going to look like

you know,

pick your actress

I picked a guy

analogy on purpose

and you know,

you're all going to be rich

and you're all going to be

athletes like

Usain Bolt

and all that type of stuff.

No,

it's not a health

and wealth text.

But it means like

even Ruth

at the very bottom

of the social level

that she's going to be able

to do something

as happens in this story

that makes Boaz

stop

and bless the Lord.

And give him

all the credit

and just wow him

with the goodness of God.

It means that

at the center of your story

you can start to look

you're dying,

you're dying,

you're dying,

you're in the desert

but resurrection is possible.

God is in the resurrection

story business.

And it might just be

that God uses you

in whatever that desert space

is for a period of time

that you start to have

a sense of his presence

and his providence

in the midst of it

in such a way

that it inspires others

or it brings you

into a new depth of pride.

I don't know what it is

but you see

at the heart

of a resurrection story

is a surprise

not fate.

And I say this

because it's not

a high school graduation

but it's because

Jesus actually did rise

from the dead

and the story of Jesus

and the story of the gospel

is to be the story

of your life.

Can you put up

the final point,

Andrew, please?

The gospel shapes you

to shape the world

in a gospel shape.

The gospel shapes you

to shape your world

in a gospel shape.

See, what we need,

this is why we read the Bible.

This is why we need

to have friends

who are Christians.

This is why we need

to be in small groups

where we start to learn

how to do life together.

This is why we come to church

on a Sunday morning

and the telling of the gospel

is always to be central.

Because what we need

is not for me

to tell you new rules

or new techniques.

You know what we need?

We need God

and his kindness

to have the Holy Spirit

bring the gospel home

to deeper levels

of who we are.

That's what I need.

I need God's Holy Spirit

to day by day

and week by week

and month by month

bring the gospel home

to a deeper level

of who I am

so it touches more and more

of who I am.

The story of the gospel,

that God loves me,

that he has done everything

to make me right with him,

that all of my sins

have been dealt with

on the cross

and all of the righteousness

I need to stand

at the banquet table

of my God

and my king

at the end of days,

all of that righteousness

has been given to me

by Jesus

and that when I put my hand

in the hand of Jesus,

he will never let me go.

And the world might tell me

that my life is going to suck.

The world might tell me

my football coach,

my dad,

my mom,

my wife,

my friend,

they all might tell me

that failure will be

the final word about me.

But when I put my hand

in the hand of Jesus,

he will never let me go

and the final word about me

will not be failure.

And that's true of you.

And it's not because

I'm an optimist.

It's because this is

what the Bible teaches.

The final word

about the person

who puts their hand

in the hand of Jesus

will be,

welcome.

I have been looking forward

to walking with you

face to face.

That is the final word

about the least person

who puts their hand

in the hand of Jesus.

Let's stand.

Let's stand.

Bow our heads in prayer.

Father,

there are some of us here

who really are

in a desert place.

And Father,

you know there are

some of us here,

we've been in a desert place

for quite a long time.

And Father,

we thank you so much

that you know them

and you love them

and that desert

isn't going to be

the final word about you.

Ask Father that

your Holy Spirit

for every single one of us

who is here

that your Holy Spirit

would bring the gospel

close to us.

That every single one of us,

Father,

that your Holy Spirit

would make the gospel

more real to us.

That for every single one of us

that you would have

the gospel,

the story of Jesus

and who he is

and what he's done for us

and what he's won for us

and it's all by faith.

That that would start

to shape us.

That it would shape

our desert,

it would shape

our lamentation

and our calling out to you,

it would shape

our prayers,

it would shape us

to look for surprising ways

by which

you will bring new life

and you will help us

to die to idols

that make our lives

seem even more bitter

and even more deserted

and that we might start

to see those different ways

that you are bringing life

into our world

and will use us

to bring life to others

unworthy as we are.

So Father,

we know that we need you.

We know, Father,

that we need the Holy Spirit

to bring the gospel

ever closer to us

and to write the gospel

and make it more real to us

day by day as we live.

And so we call out to you

who love us.

You are our Father

who loves us.

You want us to pray

and we call out to you

and we ask for this

in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.